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Gay rights
You have the right to live your life your way. * You have the right to live your life, your way, without governmental interference, provided only, that you respect the lives and property of others. The best home for inclusion, tolerance and to celebrate our diversity is with the Libertarians and, I'll inject, the Unitarian Universalist as a religious home. Pittsburgh needs everyone. To soar, we need all the colors of the rainbow, left and right, and tail feathers. Every citizen is valued. As an urban hub, people gravitate here from all over the region. These newly-arriving citizens are customers, voters, workers and taxpayers. They help shoulder the load for everyone in the city. In most instances, Pittsburghers are open-minded. On rare instances, we need to take steps to ensure the rights and dignity of all people -- like or unlike ourselves. I think that every one should be treated equally. So I'm not going to mandate to a company that they have to provide same sex benefits. It's up to the companies to decide that. And it is up to you to decide how to live your life. If CMU decides to offer same sex benefits, then Pitt might be pressured into offering them too. But it would be the market forces, not the government doing the pressuring. City Government should not micromanage private benefits packages. Gay Issues With this campaign, the support or opposition to laws and issues is traced to central principles. Generally, your life is yours, your property is yours, that you have inalienable rights to live your life your way, without government interference, provided that you respect the rights and property of others. On gay issues: your life is yours to live your way. Period. I believe that we should all be treated equally under the law, meaning no special favors for any group, nor any special handicaps for any one group. I would oppose any law granting special protections or quotas for gays, women, minorities, businesses, or politicians, and I would oppose any law that denied anyone full enjoyment of all rights and privileges. All must be equal in the eyes of the law. It is not the government's business whether a company offers benefits to same-sex couples. This is an issue for each company to address. Elected officials should not dictate how others should run their business or their private lives, so long as they do not harm or defraud. Government should not interfere in private affairs. It's none of the government's business what goes on between consenting adults. The best way to insure that private affairs remain private is to vote Libertarian. In the past, those groups did not issue any endoresements to Rauterkus. Expectations for endorsement in the future are slim. The value of some endorsements are suspect as well. Endorsement groups: * Pink Pistols * Log Cabin Republicans * Gertrude Stein political club on Forward Ave. in Sq. Hill. The Pa. Fair Tax coalition is a group that the LPPgh should work with in 2001. The Gertrude Stein Political Club has a yearly 'pub crawl' where they pass out literature from the candidates that they have endorsed. This is a good way to reach the gay vote because it is a 'crawl' of gay pubs in the pgh area. They may have endorsed Murphy in the past, but that was before Act 47. Gays are taxpayers too!! I can think of one person who is gay and who lives in state senate district 42. He has ties to the libertarians. You should email him and ask for advice on reaching the Pgh gay voters. He often attends LPPgh meetings. Also there is a yearly Pgh PrideFest. It includes a march through the eastern part of pgh. It ususally ends in Schenley or Frick Park and there are speakers, events, photo ops. You could march in the parade. The speakers at the event are nonpolitical, so you might not get to speak. They didn't let Ken K speak back in 1998. These orgs are on the internet if you look for them. Type in gay and pittsburgh and you will get all of these groups. The LP National Platform has a clear, unambiguous stance on gay rights that could be turned into a targeted emailing to these groups.